Phonetic Knowledge

What is Phonetic Knowledge?

Phonetic Knowledge is the knowledge of sound-symbol relations and sound patterns represented in a language. It is when a child is learning to talk/communicate and they develop phonemic awareness, which is a awareness of distinctive speech sounds, and they use phonemes (smallest unit of sound) to create words. Characteristics of normal development related to this aspect include, cooing, babbling, sound play, matching speech sounds to print, early spelling attempts, and the variations in spelling attempts.

Phonetic Knowledge in Infants/Toddlers:

Research with very young infants has concluded that they can distinguish nearly all the phonemic contrasts represented in natural language. Children can distinguish specific phonemes as early as 1 month of age. In addition, at 5 months, infants recognize and categorize the same phonemes, regardless of changes in speakers and intonation. Babies can also distinguish between sequences of syllables. In addition, infants are able to categorize utterances from different languages, based on the rhythmic patterns of utterances. Between 8 and 10 months, infants begin to pay more attention to phoneme-sound contrasts that exist in their home language, while they pay little or no attention to phoneme-sound contrasts found in other languages.

Although infants perceive a wide range of phonemes and environmental sounds, their production of speech sounds is limited by their immature physiology. Early infant vocalizations are initially reflexive and later on non-reflexive vocalizations develop. Reflexive vocalizations come from the infants physical state and include, crying, coughing, hiccupping, and burping. Between 6 and 8 weeks, many infants spontaneously produce cooing sounds. Cooing, and later on, babbling are non-reflexive vocalizations. The cooing stage is important because during this time, infants begin to manipulate their tongues and mouths in producing sounds. These actions are precursors to actions required for later speech production. At about 4 to 6 months, babbling appears which is essentially reduplicated sounds, such as ba-ba-ba-ba. At about 11 to 12 months, infants may begin to produce word-like units that have relatively consistent sound patterns. A small number of conventional words may also be produced, such as "no." In literate cultures, awareness of phonological distinctions may develop as infants engage in picture book sharing activities with parents or caregivers. Parents may engage their infants in looking at the pictures by using wide variations in sounds and intonation. For example, animal sounds, rhyming text, songs, and environmental sounds. In this way, picture book sharing stimulates auditory perception and phonological awareness related to spoken and written language.

Children's perception and production of phonemes becomes especially evident during toddler years, as they begin to speak a range of words. Initially, pronunciation of a child's first words is not stable, varying from day to day or even more often. Toddlers are aware of speech sounds they cannot make and may avoid or refuse to pronounce words containing those sounds. Adults may engage in imitating sounds made by toddlers to initiate a turn-taking, game-like interaction. Evidence of toddlers' awareness of sound similarities and patterns also occurs when toddlers express delight, respond nonverbally with body movement, or both when poetry or rhythmic prose is read or when action songs or finger plays are performed. During the toddler years, children may also begin to explore letter and sound connections by manipulating magnetic letters displayed on their family's refrigerator or in their early childhood classroom. For example, a child might place the letters D and B on the refrigerator and say, "Daddy, bee" as well as naming the letters as they use them.

Phonetic Knowledge in Pre-Schoolers:

During the preschool years, children's growing awareness of phonemes is often evident in how they use language. This metalinguistic awareness that words are composed of separate sounds that can be manipulated is termed phonemic awareness. When speaking, preschool children may begin to focus on and manipulate specific phonemes. Although they may not be able to name the different sounds in words or explain why the words rhyme, preschool children are developing an awareness that they can create words that have similar sounds and that sound manipulation is fun. One of the types of language play is sound play, which consists of children's manipulating the phonemic elements and prosodic features of pitch, stress, and juncture. As preschoolers, children focus on the sound similarities between words and consciously manipulating the sound elements in a word. Spontaneous rhyming is a type of phonemic sound play. As children play, rhyming chants may be expressed, as in "cat, fat, bat, mat, sat." When children listen to stories or to poetry readings, they may also indicate their awareness of sound patterns and phonemic relations by anticipating upcoming text or contributing additional rhyming words. Children may also verbally comment on words that rhyme. For example, saying, "bat and cat sound the same. They rhyme."

As preschool children interact more with written language when adults read stories, and with environmental print, such as road signs and restaurant or store signs, they being to associate initial letters with specific sounds. Some preschool children begin to try to match speech to print and to explore way of sharing ideas on paper. As preschoolers attempt to figure out which letters to use for their names and messages and how to "say" what they have written or what someone else has written, their developing awareness of connections between sounds and print becomes evident. Initially, preschoolers typically use scribbling, letter-like forms, or strings of letters when writing and assign meaning to what they have written when "reading" it to a peer or adult. Gradually, children begin to associate specific sounds with letters and may use just one letter to represent a word; for example, using the letter D to represent the word "Daddy."

Phonetic Knowledge in Kindergarteners:

The acquisition of phonological knowledge is evident in kindergarten children's ability to distinguish similarities in beginning and ending sounds. Children's awareness of alliteration and rhyme contribute to the acquisition of reading in two ways, 1.) perception of rhyme and alliteration are the forerunners of being able to distinguish phonemes, and 2.) perception of rhyme helps children see similarities in spelling patterns. Kindergarten children may also become aware of others' different pronunciations and may tease children who speak differently. Likewise, children who are experiencing difficulty may become less verbal, not risking failure or embarrassment. Teachers must be aware of these situations and encourage acceptance and communication among all children.

Significant evidence of children's acquisition of phonological knowledge of written language may occur during the kindergarten year. Knowledge of the names of letters in the alphabet is related to the development of phonological awareness. When kindergarten children create their own stories, they may comment on their process and their expectations for using print. Kindergarteners may show evidence of phonological knowledge in their attempts to read when they begin to focus on letter-sound connections. When asked to "read" a familiar storybook, some children attempt an effortful "sounding out," focusing on the print. When they encounter difficulty, some children then refuse to read, indicating that although they know the print is the source of the message, they cannot decode it: "I don't know what that word says," or "I don't know this word." These print-related refusals are thought to indicate an awareness of the importance of decoding to "real" reading. Other children, while unsuccessfully attempting to decode print, frequently look to an adult researcher for confirmation that their attempts are "right." Kindergarten children exhibit a wide variety of emergent writing behaviors that indicate that they are beginning to focus on the way print represents specific speech sounds. Children's early spelling attempts provide rich evidence of their acquisition of phonological knowledge about written language. Children's conscious awareness of the sounds in words and how the sounds can be separated orally during language play or when attempting to create a written message are evidence of phonological awareness. This awareness is significantly related to learning to read and write. Literacy-related instruction also influences the continued development of phonological awareness due to the focus of that instruction on letter-sound connections, phoneme segmentation of words, and spelling patterns.

Phonetic Knowledge in Primary Age Children:

The primary years are a time during which children achieve mastery over phoneme production. In addition, during this time, children's phonological knowledge is increasingly influenced by their experience with reading and writing. During children's sixth and seventh years, they continue to increase in their ability to produce a full range of specific language sounds. By age 8, most children have complete phoneme production. The acquisition of consonant clusters may not occur until children are 8 years old. While some children may have acquired these articulations earlier than the ages cited here, it is important for teachers to hold off on referring slower-achieving children for speech remediation until they are well past those target ages for the respective sounds. Primary age children also increase in their rhyming abilities and awareness of other sound patterns, such as onset and rime. Onset refers to the initial consonant of a syllable that precedes the first vowel of a syllable; rime refers to the vowel and any remaining consonants of a syllable.

Primary children vary in their approaches to spelling. Some are just beginning to figure out the orthographic system. Other children are more sophisticated in their representations of phonemes. Thus, it is important for primary teachers to be aware of the developmental progression of orthographic-phonemic knowledge in young children. Prior to acquiring conventional spelling, primary grade children may go through one or more stages of phonemic spelling, as representations of phonemes become more consistent and complete. Primary-age children also become aware of the ways in which words are spelled differently in academic English than when represented in dialect. In addition, as children begin to read a wider variety of texts, they come across unusual spelling patterns that do not follow previously learned letter-sound associations. Children's experiences that contribute to their oral and written vocabularies and the ways they are encouraged to use and examine those words will influence their acquisition of spelling knowledge. A key factor in this process appears to be opportunities children have to apply what they are learning about word spelling patterns to their reading and writing activities.

Tips for Parents:

1. Focus on one sound at at time. For instance, certain sounds, such as /s/, /m/, /f/ are great sounds to start with. The sound is distinct, and can be exaggerated easily. "Please pass the mmmmmmmmilk." "Look! There's a ssssssssssnake!" "You have fffffffive markers on the table." It's also easy to describe how to make the sound with your mouth. "Close your mouth and lips to make the sound. Now put your hand on your throat. Do you feel the vibration?" Once your child learns a few phonemes, it will be easier to keep talking about letters and sounds.

2. Help your child listen for the sounds. One part of learning letters and sounds is being able to figure out if a word contains a particular sound. "Do we hear /mmmmmmm/ in the word mmmmmmoon? Do we hear /mmmmmmm/ in the word cake?" These sorts of activities, done orally with your child, can help him begin to listen for and hear sounds within words.

3. Apply letter-sound skills to reading. Putting these skills to work within a book is a powerful way to help your child see the connection between letters, sounds, and words. As you're reading together, find places in the book to point out the letters and sounds you've been working on together. "Look! This page says 'Red fish, blue fish." There's the /fffffff/ sound we've been having fun with! It's at the beginning of the word fish."